CURRENT state of affairs.

Anyone know the inn's and outs of the Haffys charge system? does it charge the battery constantly or cut in and out at a given point? Mines up and running ( in the garage ) and does not seem to be charging the battery as it has stooped to 11v now. I was expecting circa 14v if it was charging!

Thanks!

Comments

The standard regulator has both voltage and current limiting electromagnets in it, so if the battery is naff, then you might see voltage climb beyond 14 volts, but the current should be very low. If the regulator is also faulty, then you could see the fuse (on the civilian models) which is 25 amp blow!

Just remember the Dynastart although rated at 240 watts - that's at 14 volts NOT 12 volts and that the output current DROPS as the unit gets hot! A better set of figures to work from are best output 15 to 17 amps at 12.6 to 14.2 volts.

First thing I would check is the in line fuse which should be in a holder which is connected to the lower right hand connection off the regulator when you look at the regulator through the bottom engine hatch. You have to take off the big outer cover to see the regulator box itself.

Do you have any sort of wiring diagram you can look at? The output from the regulator connection mentioned above then goes to one of the connection points on the starter solenoid and then on to dash if i remember correctly. My wiring diagrams are currently buried as we are having carpets down and they want the room empty! The repair manual has a section which explains how to test the regulator output.

If you suspect the regulator is faulty in any way, I would suggest you replace it with an electronic one. You can get one which is small enough to fit inside the original regulator case and so no one would ever know it was electronic and not mechanical! My electronic one is very good, it produces 14.2 volts at maximum output from the dynastart. The current tapers off to a trickle charge as soon as the battery charge will allow, mine is down after less than 5 minutes driving. Even if I turn all the lights on, the regulator handles the current requirement correctly so I still have a trickle charge going to the battery.

Cheers John, I have checked the inline fuse and it is ok. I believe the wire going to the dash is a charge indicator light wire? mine comes from the top left of the regulator box. Surely when the engine is running i should have some voltage output from the dyno? I measured the battery voltage before i ran the haffy and it was at 12.6v, i started the haffy, put on all the lights, and watched the voltage drop away to 11v over the space of a few minutes, thus indicating to me there was no charge getting to it.

Remember it is 2 separate things in one unit. It can act as a starter and NOT as a generator, not heard of one acting as a generator but not as a starter, so you have half the battle to solve.

Next thing on your diagnostics would be to remove the dynastart and check ALL the brushes: a) for length - spring should not be touching the metal holding bracket. b) that they can all move freely in the holding brackets. c) that there are no obvious shorts, loose connection etc. d) that the commutator surfaces are clean and smooth and there is a slight undercut gap between the segments.

If the commutator is not round, then at higher revs, the brushes bounce and do not make contact and your charging voltage / current drops.

The starter part can work if only 2 brushes are making contact, but charging requires all 4.

Make sure you get the locating peg under the fan cover back in place correctly when you put the dynastart back in as it aligns the timing reference line correctly then.

Hey John, tonight i have stripped down the dynastart, The carbon brushes look fine, all of even wear, free moving etc, the commutator did however look a little worse for wear, anyhow i cleaned everything down and put the lot back together, still absolutely no charge output. I was beginning to wonder if i had a problem with one of the stator coils...but im guessing it wouldnt start unless they were in good order.

Yea cheers John, I should have checked the resistance while i had the thing in bits, even if i didnt know the exact values no doubt they should be equal. Anyway only a ten minute job to strip out again now i know my way around it.

You need to perform the following tests to find out what's happening with your charging system.

Disconnect the battery (obviously).

Disconnect all the wires going to the Dynastart.

1) Use your multimeter on the resistance setting and measure if you get a connection between the big terminal 30H and the case. It should be quite a low resistance. - it should vary as you turn the Dynastart shaft (You are measuring the connection through the brushes). This is the starter coil - so thicker wire, fewer turns.

2) Use the meter and see if you get a connection between 30H and D+, should be be very low. Basically, it should be a direct connection as they are both directly connected to the same set of brushes.

3) Use the meter to check between Df and the case. It should be quite a low resistance, but higher than that found in operation 1 above. Again it should vary as you turn the shaft. This is the field winding coil - thinner wire, more turns.

Obviously, if you get no connection readings as detailed above then your Dynastart is faulty. This could be down to bad brushes, bad soldered connections, broken or sorted windings in the various coils.

There is a very good company which can do a "complete" refurbishment of a Dynastart if required. Everything from bearings to rewinding ALL the coils. As with most things that are done properly / completely / correctly, they are not cheap, but they do an excellent job. (http://www.dynamoregulatorconversions.com/).

Once you have established which bit of your charging system is at fault, we can look at what you can do to fix it.

Regulators are becoming very difficult to source as Bosch have discontinued the original one used by Puch on the Haflinger. There are various ones available which "look" identical, but the electrical characteristics are different and if you are not careful, could burn out a perfectly good Dynastart!

It is possible to "bend" contacts with in the regulator to adjust the output over a small range (I would NOT suggest doing this). The most I would recommend doing to the internals of a regulator is to clean the various points surfaces.

It is incredibly easy to bend a contact arm too much and lose any voltage / current output you had before you started adjusting things to try and "improve" the output from the regulator - I know, I've killed two regulators...... trying to get the voltage from slightly too low to nearer what I thought it should be! Even if you think you can just bend it back to where it was is likely NOT to work...

Once again John cheers for your help, I have sourced a copy of the charging circuit which i have in the garage, will probly have a bash at it at some point today as its the last electrical job to do and has been haunting me for days.

Also John yes i have looked in my inbox...there is nothing there, however i have suspected the messaging system on here not to have been working right for quite some time.

The reading between 30H and D+ should be lower than 30H and the case as it is a direct connection, I wonder if you have a bad solder joint in the brush carrier, or the bolt on tags need a clean.

I'll dig out my "spare" which also doesn't charge and see what reading I get from that.

If I were you at this point, I would remove the Dynastart from the engine, mount it in a vice. Then use an electric drill to turn it. You need to make sure you spin it in the correct direction! Clockwise from the pulley end.

That way you can take some voltage reading more easily. You can wire up your regulator as well.

Cheers John, when i had it in bits i cleaned all brush carriers and bolt on tags, with electrical cleaner, i also cleaned the field field coils down and had a good visual inspection...all seemed well, a friend of mine has some spare dyno parts, so hopefully if all else fails i can make one good one up out of the spares, just out of curiosity, do you know what viltage i should expect to be coming out of the dyno? I know it will increase in accordance with RPM but just say at tick over for example?

Got tied up with other stuff. The voltage you will get out of the Dynastart with no regulator box attached should be quite small as it is a self reinforcing system using the regulator to supply voltage to the field coils. I would have thought max would be 50 volts at high rpm at next to no current - i.e. just an unloaded multimeter reading voltage. Really, as long as you get a reading then next item to look at is the regulator.

Unfortunately, testing the coils in the Dynastart requires a Mega (specialist resistance checker) to see if the lacquer has broken down causing a short.

Hi John, I have a megger which was my next task to check the coils for leakage to earth, I can get maximum of 1v DC out my dynostart, I will go back to the garage later on and megger the coils out, if they prove to be ok then i agree with yourself, its time to check the regulator,

right, where am I! well, i managed to source various pieces of dyno's from a friend, i checked resistance values etc, chose the best looking rotor/armature, best brushes and i assembled one. I believe i may have cracked it, but still unsure of a few things, firstly when i start the haffy the charge light stays illuminated, it only go's out once the engine is revving quite hard, is this normal? also at this point, i can see the contactors moving over on the regulator as i have the cover off it.

also...just out of interest, I megger'd the original field coils i was using and they pretty much went straight to earth, as did the rest of the spare ones i have aquired....baring in mind most of them have stood for 40 years i dont think this is suprising, the stator im using at the minute had the best reading at point 4 of a meg.

I take it that you have 2 belts on the pulleys? That there does not appear to be any slip happening due to slack belts?

Red light going out higher up the rev range is generally down to regulator issues. I really am in favour of the 22 amp electronic regulator available from the link posted above as it removes all the possible mechanical issues that occur in old worn parts.

I dealt with them via email and they actually do a 22 amp version. In theory the 16 amp version should be sufficient, but personally I would look at it and think it would be running near it Max capacity quite a lot of the time and therefore producing heat which due to where it is normally fitted might cause some issues.

If you have a suitable case, they can hide it inside, or you can just get the naked unit and fit to what ever case you want.